Mother of three subjected to months of harassment after reviewing salmon sashimi
A negative review of a salmon sashimi product resulted in months of harassment for Ms Francesca Chia, with a picture of her and one of her three children shared online.
Ms Chia, 32, an operation director at an engineering firm, was earlier in October granted a protection order against Ms Peggy Heng - an influencer who promotes products on social media - by a judge from the Protection from Harassment Court.
The order prohibits Ms Heng, 33, from publishing anything related to Ms Chia on all social media platforms. She is also not allowed to contact Ms Chia or her family and friends directly, among other things.
In his oral grounds of decision, Judge Winston Man said Ms Heng’s posts “had the effect of very publicly disparaging Ms Chia’s character and intelligence”. He also ordered Ms Heng to pay Ms Chia $2,500 in costs.
Ms Chia said the harassment – over a seven-month period – was an ordeal, but what frightened her the most was when Ms Heng shared an image of her and her daughter on her Instagram account, which has over 37,000 followers.
Ms Chia has three children aged between 10 months and 10 years old. “I was afraid her followers would locate my older daughter and bother her,” she said, adding that Ms Heng’s followers had messaged her on Instagram and called her a disgrace for “picking on Ms Heng”.
Ms Chia said she had given an honest review of the salmon sashimi product that she bought from Ms Heng’s business, which was posted on March 23 on her Instagram story.
She had said in the post: “Eee this sashimi is craps! Don’t order! Is not even sashimi lor??? Why half cook?? (sic)”
Soon after, Ms Heng made several posts about Ms Chia from March to April.
On April 8, Ms Chia obtained an expedited protection order against the influencer, prohibiting Ms Heng from contacting her directly.
But on May 19, Ms Heng and two other people went to Ms Chia’s unit and gave her letters from a lawyer purporting defamation on her part. The defamation case has since been dropped.
Ms Heng was caught on closed-circuit television camera footage doing celebratory high-fives with her friends outside Ms Chia’s unit.
The judge said: “She fully intended to be seen by Ms Chia right on her doorstep with the knowledge that this would startle or shake her.”
He added that while it is arguable that Ms Chia’s initial review was unnecessary or even unfair, he considered Ms Heng’s conduct to be disproportionate to any perceived provocation.
“A negative or unfair review does not entitle a business owner to lodge sustained personal attacks, especially in such a public forum, against the reviewer,” said the judge.
The protection order was granted on Oct 14.
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